VFS is pleased to announce our new Strategic Partnership with Edwards™ United Technologies. Edwards is a global leader in product emergency communication, mass notification and life safety system solutions. VFS is a one stop provider for all fire & life safety needs.

No matter the depth and breadth of your fire & life safety needs, our Strategic Partnership with Edwards allows VFS to discover innovative ways to meet site-specific challenges. Whether you need to protect a healthcare institution, education facility, distribution plant, refinery, aircraft hangar or any other special hazard application, VFS partnered with the Edwards product line will provide a winning solution.

The new Edwards product solutions are modular, scalable, and meet the needs of applications ranging from fire detection, to industrial signaling and institutional communications. These solutions from Edwards offer technologically advanced innovations that deliver value and reliability for the entire service life of the product.

When facility owners, property manager, end-users, architects and engineers do business with VFS, they know that their partnership with the Edwards product line is underwritten by a solid 140-year history of dedication to alarm and detection technology. That’s why building professionals all over the world agree that when it comes to protecting people and property, Edwards systems deliver on a long standing promise of excellence that has been met for generations.

To learn more about VFS and our partnership with Edwards, contact us today!

On June 14, 2017, one of the most devastating fires hit the Grenfell Towers high rise buildings in London. There at least 80 people confirmed dead, over 70 additional injured and hospitalized. The fire burned for over 60 hours and over 250 firemen were involved in putting out this blaze. The apartment building was a 24 story high rise and the fire started in a fridge-freezer on the 4th floor.

Anger is rising amongst the British people in the aftermath of this fire and many people are calling for justice! Reports from London state that safety concerns in the building had been ignored for quite some time. There was no sprinkler system in the building and in fact some of the materials used to renovate the building were considered highly flammable and probably helped the fire to spread. Joe Ruane, the former deputy chief fire officer for US Air Force bases in Britain, stated that he has never seen a blaze like this before and it appears that more than one fire protection safeguard failed. Labour MP David Lammy denounced the fire as “corporate manslaughter”. He said arrests should be made based on the negligence of the building owners.

This type of tragic fire raises the need for awareness in following the laws and codes set forth by Fire Protection Agencies. A fire sprinkler system could have prevented this catastrophe fire on the 4th floor before it could spread throughout the entire building. Neglecting to protect people, or not to inspect and maintain existing fire & life safety systems at the expanse of corporate savings, can result in tragedy such as the Grenfell Towers fire.

You rely on your fire and life safety systems to protect your people, property and business, therefore regular maintenance is essential for keeping these systems running smoothly and guarantee safety. If you’re wondering whether a preventive maintenance agreement is worth the investment, consider the following benefits

Predictable and Lower Costs Over the Life of the Contract

When you are managing a budget, it’s critical to understand expenses up front. No one likes surprises – especially unexpected maintenance costs. When you enter into a preventative maintenance agreement, the majority of your expenses are determined in advance. While the thought of signing an agreement with a service may not seem necessary to many businesses, in fact it can save money over the life of the agreement. Without a maintenance agreement in place, businesses will need to deal with that frantic day when the system goes down and will likely pay overtime/premium labor rates, rush charges on equipment or emergency rates versus the lower rates provided in a maintenance agreement. Service companies typically offer discounted rates as part of their preventative maintenance agreement.

Minimizing costly downtime

With the regular testing and inspections that are included in a preventative maintenance agreement, potential problems can be identified in advance. These issues can then be resolved based on a schedule that makes sense for the business rather than dealing with costly downtime if an emergency occurs. With a maintenance agreement for your fire & life safety systems in place, the financial downtime impact can be minimized.

3.Reduced Stress

Emergency service calls are stressful and expensive. You will typically pay premium rates that include minimum charges that in many cases may be more expensive than the repair itself. Your emergency could potentially require that a technician work on the repairs at night or on the weekend during premium labor wages and rates. With a preventative maintenance agreement in place, this extra stress can be avoided.

Increased longevity for your systems

Routine maintenance on your equipment can increase the longevity of your fire and life safety systems. A technician can identify simple repair issues before they become a serious and potentially life threating. With regular maintenance it’s less likely that your fire & life safety systems will experience unexpected failures. With a preventative maintenance agreement in place you can be confident that your systems will continue to perform as designed optimizing their performance.

Priority Service

Most preventative maintenance agreements are contractually binding to a service respond time. Due to this, companies will service their customers that are covered by a preventative maintenance agreement ahead of other customers. In the fire and life safety industry most emergency calls take precedence over all non-emergency/scheduled calls. For those scheduled non-emergency calls, service providers’ bind to a maintenance agreement will schedule a service request for customers under an agreement before non-preventative maintenance customers.

To learn more about maintenance service agreements available from VFS, contact us today!

VFS held its annual Customer Service and Safety Day in March. The event is held each year and involves all 130+ VFS employees. The VFS team spends the day learning about customer service, safety and team building.

This year’s events focused on five areas:

Road Safety

Orange Police Department Active Shooter Training

General Safety Training

Customer Service Training

Team Building exercises

The VFS safety program has a superior record of success in every way it can be measured. We recognize that the work we do can be extremely dangerous and our goal is to make the safety of our employees and clients a top priority. Along with our annual safety event, VFS conducts weekly and monthly safety meetings along with weekly surprise on-site safety inspections. In addition, EVERY company employee from field to office is required to participate in monthly Safety Toolbox Topics.

When it comes to safety, VFS has one of the lowest Experience Modification Rates in the fire & life safety industry. The reason for that is because we take safety very seriously. The Experience Modification Rate (EMR) has a strong impact on businesses. It is a number used by insurance companies to gauge both past cost of injuries and future chances of risk. An EMR of 1.0 is considered the industry average.

VFS Experience Modification Rate:

2016: 0.63

2015: 0.76

2014: 0.92

2013: 0.98

VFS is proud of our safety record and will continue to make safety a priority for our team and our clients.